Izik is a great little internet search app built for your iPad

When I think of search I pretty much think of Google. I have tried Bing, and while it is pretty, a lot of my searches just don't turn out as well as they do on Google. If you'd like to try something completely different, let me suggest you get a look at Izik, which is free. Izik is not a front end for Google or any other search engine, but it has its own search technology and methodology from Blekko, the company that created the Izik app.

The searches are very visual, yet powerful. I was getting very good results from some obscure searches. Search results get nicely divided into categories that appear at the bottom of the screen, and those categories are context sensitive. For example, if I'm searching in politics, I can easily pull in conservative or liberal stories, breaking news, etc. It's all very organized, and rich in content.

You can also pull in images, something that Google provides as well of course. Izik is very iOS friendly, so the app supports horizontal swipes for more results, vertical swipes for more categories. After a while, it all becomes second nature and it is very fast to target the information you are looking for.

One downside is that while the app lets you share your searches via Facebook and Twitter, there is no sharing via email, which seems an odd design choice. The developers say that feature is coming, however.

The search engine also links to sites like Wikipedia and Fandango, which provides movie information and show times.

I had some initial skepticism about this app, but after using it I like it a lot. It's free, but at some point it will likely have ads.

Izik is iPad-only and requires iOS 6 or later. It's a quality app with quality results presented in a pleasing manner.